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Norfolk Park Estate Early 70s,


s6lad

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On January 13th 1967 we moved into the new Jervis block on the 13th floor so pleased to have our own place with under floor heating and a view over Sheffield to die for. I had my first child in November 1968 and it was awfull when the lift broke down or we had a power cut and I had to drag the pram up all the stairs. In January 1971 when I was expecting my second child we got an exchange to a maisonette on Park Spring Drive . We had hired a van to do the move ourself assisted by friends but it was deep snow and we could not hire the van so we walked across the road with all our furniture coming back with the ones we were exchanging with. We had lots of help from the neighbours and had so many laughs sitting in the basement of the flats on a bed drinking larger and walking over the bridge with a big roll of carpet. We left the estate in 1976 to buy a nice new house but I will never forget the good neighbours and the happy times we had especially on a Saturday night after a night in The Horse and Lion when we took it in turns to go to each others flats for more drinks and supper. Thanks for the memories. he he

Welcome to Sheffield History Syl,

Glad you have enjoyed the posts in this thread and thanks for your contribution to it.

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Guest paulhumphries

A night out boozing on Stones best bitter followed by a fish and chip supper and all you had to do was stagger around the back of the boozer. ;-)

my mum used to work in the chippy in the late 70s early 80s used to free chips for tea................ lol lol

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my mum used to work in the chippy in the late 70s early 80s used to free chips for tea................ lollol

Did you get a pint of Stones beer with them from the Captive Queen ? lol

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After a bit of searching I have found a photo I took of the Kenninghall flats to satisfy those posts that mistakenly think my earlier picture was of these blocks. This picture is dated December 1969, so it predates the strand title (early 70's) by a month. It is also one of my earliest attempts at a panorama by joining 2 overlapping pictures together. The juin is not perfect and there is an annoying change in brightness from one half to the other. Remember there was no digital imaging in 1969, I had to do it all by darkroom work. Interestingly when I rescanned the negatives and asked modern software to make me a better panorama it couldn't do it, - just told me the 2 pictures had no features in common, - even though there was about a 15% overlap.

The picture is taken from the bottom of Eastern Drive (note the old street lamp on the left) where it meets Kenninghall Mount. The tower block on the right is the Kenninghall Mount block from right to left you can just about make out the edge of Park Grange Road. In the distance we can see part of the city, including the 3 tower blocks on Cliffe Street just off London Road. the older housing further to the left are way down the Black Bank on the other side of East Bank Road on the Heeley / Lowfields area. The road which is very prominent running away from camera in this area is either Myrtle Road or Waldon Road, most likely Myrtle Road as I think you can just make out the SUFC training ground on the left. Finally around the street lamp it looks high, bleak and desolate at the top of Black Bank, indeed a very windy area.

Having taken this early panorama over 40 years ago now and having posted it into this thread over a year ago I though it was about time to do an updated comparison shot like a "Then and Now"

Changed a bit hasn't it.

But you can probably still see SteveHB's house in the background lol

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Having taken this early panorama over 40 years ago now and having posted it into this thread over a year ago I though it was about time to do an updated comparison shot like a "Then and Now"

Changed a bit hasn't it.

But you can probably still see SteveHB's house in the background lol

The road where that street lamp was is now blocked off, - no access down here to East Bank Road any more

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The road where that street lamp was is now blocked off, - no access down here to East Bank Road any more

This is the view across to the area SteveHB picked out as being Myrtle Road / Spurr Lane

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This is the view across to the area SteveHB picked out as being Myrtle Road / Spurr Lane

A view of the City just to the left of where the Kenninghall tower blocks were in the first panorama. These flats have now been replaced with some more modern housing.

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Guest sharha64

On January 13th 1967 we moved into the new Jervis block on the 13th floor so pleased to have our own place with under floor heating and a view over Sheffield to die for. I had my first child in November 1968 and it was awfull when the lift broke down or we had a power cut and I had to drag the pram up all the stairs. In January 1971 when I was expecting my second child we got an exchange to a maisonette on Park Spring Drive . We had hired a van to do the move ourself assisted by friends but it was deep snow and we could not hire the van so we walked across the road with all our furniture coming back with the ones we were exchanging with. We had lots of help from the neighbours and had so many laughs sitting in the basement of the flats on a bed drinking larger and walking over the bridge with a big roll of carpet. We left the estate in 1976 to buy a nice new house but I will never forget the good neighbours and the happy times we had especially on a Saturday night after a night in The Horse and Lion when we took it in turns to go to each others flats for more drinks and supper. Thanks for the memories. he he

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We lived on Park Spring Grove ...my mum worked at the Post office ....June ?

I moved onto Norfolk Park Estate in 1982 as a 23 year old into a 1 bedroom flat on the 13th floor of Talbot at 293 Kenninghall Mount. and was there till 1991 when I moved onto Harold Lambert Court ( Hyde Park Flats) in the autumn after the ill fated Student Games. I have a photograph taken from the verandah overlooking the City Centre in about 1987 or 88 which is framed and hangs in my toilet. The weird thing is in 2001 my late partner and I moved to a 2 bed semi detached on the Stradbroke estate and on the night we moved in I finally sat downin front of the Tv and ended up watching a programme which showed the demolition of Talbot block by explosives.. I have a lot of happy memories of living in that block but when they stopped the night buses it made getting home from work late at night a chore. I worked for BR and while walking in to work at Sheffield Station was a 30 minute walk down the hill, coming back at night was a90 minute walk back up. The person who mentioned them swaying in high wind is quite correct I was there in 1987 in the high gales and it was quite scarey. the glass in the windows was bowing and the water was sucked out of the U bend in the toilet and was howling in the bath and washbasin plug holes. I had a fish tank in my sitting room and had to take water out of it to stop it splashing over the top of the tank with the movement of the building

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The person who mentioned them swaying in high wind is quite correct I was there in 1987 in the high gales and it was quite scarey. the glass in the windows was bowing and the water was sucked out of the U bend in the toilet and was howling in the bath and washbasin plug holes. I had a fish tank in my sitting room and had to take water out of it to stop it splashing over the top of the tank with the movement of the building

Unusually Sheffield has suffered 2 minor earthquakes (earth tremors) in the last decade.

It is unusual as Sheffield, indeed the whole of Britain, is not in an Earthquke zone and so never gets big shockwaves or tremors, but both of these were around 3 to 3.5 on the Richter scale and were quite definately "felt" as the earth moving. Both happened at night while I was in bed and both shook the house violently enough to wake me up.

I wonder, if the Norfolk Park Tower blocks had not been demolished shortly before these events how well they would have withstood this violent shaking.

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On 27/10/2008 at 16:09, DaveH said:

 

 

OK Steve, I've been working on this one for a week or two now. Surprising how these blocks have only been gone a few years and already the details are becoming confused and vague. After a fair bit of searching and asking people I know who lived in the flats heres a first attempt. I can't guarantee its 100% accurate, especially when 2 blocks with different names share the same street address so corrections would be welcomed. As this is a data table I would also like to add a column for the colour of each block which it was painted in its later years.

 

Using SteveHB's photos and numbering system,

 

1 Guildford View (Guildford)

2 Guildford View (Shrewsbury)

3 Guildford Drive (Beechview)

4 Guildford Close (Bankside)

5 Beldon Close (Mickley)

6 Kenninghall Place (Cliffe)

7 Kenninghall Mount (Talbot)

8 Park Grange View (Jervis)

9 Beeches Drive (Mandrake)

10 Park Grange Mount (East Bank)

11 Park Grange Mount (Spring)

12 Tower Drive (Grange)

 

Missing from the photo somewhere off top left are the 3 blocks on St. Aidens,

 

13 St. Aidens Drive (Howard)

14 St. Aidens Close (Fitzalan)

15 St. Aidens Mount (Granville)

 

These are the 15 blocks on Norfolk Park, off the estate towards town were 3 other blocks on Claywood

 

16 Claywood Drive (Claywood)

17 Claywood Drive (Fitzwalter)

18 Claywood Drive (Norfolk)

 

An down in the City itself there is one block built to this same design still standing

 

19 Exeter Drive (Hanover)

 

Hope this information is useful. I will update / correct it if more details become available

Very useful posts in here!

 

I'm currently trying to name all my old pictures.

Do we know the colours of these?

I'm after 13 14 and 15

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, djash1000 said:

Very useful posts in here!

 

I'm currently trying to name all my old pictures.

Do we know the colours of these?

I'm after 13 14 and 15

 

 

 

 

Thanks djash1000

13, 14 and 15 were the 3 St. Aidens blocks that stood opposite the main entrance to City Road cemetery.

When the blocks were built in the mid 60s they were not painted or coloured so all the blocks looked identical in their unpainted concrete grey. The colours were only added 20 years later in the 1980s refurbishment. By this time I had moved away from this area so I am not well up with the colours, although in another post I think we did try to tie in the colours as well.

DaveH

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